Oregon, My Oregon

 Griffin J. John II, the suspected shooter

Eric Florack at PJM says Bring the Charges, Oregon. I’ll Bring the Popcorn.

Let me get one thing out of the way before the hate mail starts: Kaylub Giamanco is a hero. Full stop. Understand that right now before reading further.

Giamanco is the 36-year-old father who grabbed his pistol from his truck, followed a 16-year-old gunman into Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Ore., and put him down. Three children and a teacher died before he got there. Nobody knows how many more would have died if he hadn't.

And I want Oregon to charge him for carrying a loaded firearm on school property.

Yeah, I know. “Say what?”

Hear me out, because my reasons aren't what you might expect. What Giamanco did saved lives, and I hold that his actions were justified, both morally and legally. Oregon law even has a name for it: the "choice of evils" defense, which excuses breaking a law to prevent a greater, imminent harm. If a 16-year-old firing a shotgun into a classroom full of special-needs kids doesn't qualify, nothing does. I don't lose a minute of sleep over the idea of a jury convicting him, even in deep-blue Oregon.

Here's the problem, though. Bend-La Pine Schools bans guns on all district property, concealed-carry license holders included. The district passed that ban after the state legislature handed every school district the option in 2021. For a licensed carrier, breaking it is a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail. By the letter of the law the Left wrote, Giamanco should have stayed in the parking lot.

Think about what staying in the parking lot would have meant. Police say the gunman fired roughly 15 rounds inside that classroom. Officers arrived within about three minutes, which is a fine response time by any standard, and still not fast enough. When seconds count, police are minutes away. That isn't a slogan. It's arithmetic.

Kaylub Giamanco shot the killer

 

The district had done everything the safety consultants recommend. Secure vestibules at every entrance. A classroom door-locking system. None of it mattered. According to police, the gunman shot out the glass panes in a set of outside doors and walked in. Locks buy time. They don't end an attack. Two people ended this one. One was a teacher who, according to police, threw her phone at the gunman, tackled him, and fought him for the weapon with her bare hands. The other was a dad with a .40-caliber pistol; the law said he had no business carrying it through that door.

So charge him. Make a Soros-paid prosecutor stand up in open court and argue that a father had a legal duty to wait outside while a teenager with a shotgun worked his way through a classroom. Make the gun-grabbers defend their gun-free zone with the bodies still warm. Put the district's own policy into evidence and read it aloud to the jury. They'd have to admit what we've said all along: the good guy with a gun saved lives, and their law stood in his way. Make the whole thing public on national TV and do it before the election.

They won't, of course. Nobody has announced charges against Giamanco, and nobody will, because the trial would be the best pro-gun ad ever produced. So the Left does the next best thing. It talks around him.

Take Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who still harbors presidential ambitions for reasons I can't fathom. Kelly and his wife, Gabby Giffords, posted Thursday that "extremists keep blocking critical, lifesaving laws." Not a word about the lifesaving, law-abiding gun owner who ended the attack. That's about as thin as a statement gets. Because you see, in light of these events, it’s Kelly that’s the extremist, and he knows it.

Kelly has company. Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.), who represents Bend, flew home and told reporters the laws "don't go far enough, fast enough." Funny thing about that. A law enforcement official told reporters the shotgun belonged to the gunman's mother, who bought it. Oregon already rates among the strictest gun-law states in the country, according to the Giffords Law Center itself. The laws on the books didn't stop a 16-year-old from getting his hands on that shotgun. The only law in this story that worked as written is the one that tried to keep Giamanco out.

If it happens, and I don't believe it will, Kaylub will not have any trouble raising money for his defense.